Danny Boyle Apologizes For Screwing Over Ewan McGregor

Director Danny Boyle may be an Oscar-winning director now, but once upon a time he was just a guy behind a little movie called Trainspotting.

His directorial debut in 1994 was Shallow Grave, which won the BAFTA for Best Film and was Ewan McGregor's first major role. Boyle used McGregor again in Trainspotting.

The critically acclaimed and era-defining film about a group of Edinburgh drug addicts snagged Boyle his first Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Following its success, he turned down Alien 4 to make another movie starring McGregor, A Life Less Ordinary.

For his next movie, The Beach, Boyle severed his friendship with McGregor when he decided to cast Leonardo DiCaprio instead of the future Obi-Wan Kenobi. Critics speculated that the American star, hot off his Titanic success, brought in more funding than the considerably less famous (at the time) McGregor.

The film was a critical failure despite being a commercial hit, and on a British TV show Friday night, Boyle admitted that hindsight is 20/20.

"You think you're moving up, it's the illusion that you think you're moving up, therefore you're going to need a bigger star to sell the movie. You learn to stick with your roots," he said.

"We didn't treat him [McGregor] very well, I've got to be honest about it, we didn't behave at our best," he conceded. "You learn and we've apologized. We made this film called The Beach, and we gave Ewan the impression we were going to cast him in it and we didn't cast him in it."

Still, both Boyle and McGregor went on to even bigger success (obviously so did Leo)—Boyle won Best Director for Slumdog Millionaire and directed the Opening Ceremony at the London Olympics.

McGregor has been in his fair share of Oscar-nominated films, including Moulin Rouge!, Beginners, Big Fish, and The Impossible. A Trainspotting sequel is also reportedly in the works. Perhaps it's best to just forgive and forget.